


Inertia

by CheshireCaine



Series: Newton's laws of motion [1]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Emotional, Hopeful Ending, I feel like I should edit but also like editing would ruin it, M/M, Post-Break Up, Slash, Sleeping Together, Sleepy Cuddles, also I'm lazy, gen except for notes, makes me want to cry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-09 03:02:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11095521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheshireCaine/pseuds/CheshireCaine
Summary: i literally can’t sleep alone anymore so i’ve shown up at your door in my pyjamas, can we have one more nap together, please?They would become entangled over the course of the night, limbs overlapping into a practised mesh and holding each other close like they couldn’t bear to let the other go (they really couldn’t, but they did anyway).





	Inertia

**Author's Note:**

> I'm too tired, fuck it—I'll tag in the morning.
> 
> Yes, the long-awaited start to my first series: JayTim angst to the max.
> 
> (I feel like it needs editing, except the discordant writing is kinda reflective of the first person-ness of the story, so I'll leave it/it's too much effort).
> 
> * * *
> 
> Wrote this overnight from the 14th to the 15th of August, 2016 in about fifty minutes. Which is a pretty impressive feat if you ignore that I didn't post it for a year. I might not backdate it though, because the two fics before it were started three months and a year before it respectively.
> 
> First in a series. (It's super satisfying to see a series section finally appear on my dashboard). The second took about three times this to write and is double the length, but needs a lot of editing, so we'll see how that goes.

Jason went through his regular nightly routine—making sure curtains were drawn, windows were closed, the TV was off. He yawned as he made his way to the front door, unlocking it and pulling it open to reveal a lean young man carrying a pillow. He sauntered his way to his bedroom, stretching one of his arms above his head till his shoulder popped. 

The young man followed him in—not a word spoken between the two of them—making sure to bolt the door shut behind him and wipe his feet on the welcome mat.

This was the third time in the past month that Tim had shown up at his front door in the middle of the night, and even though at first it had seemed like a one-off event, it was looking like it was going to become a regular thing. Hence, Jason’s treating it like a part of his routine.

He could anticipate Tim’s arrival down to the minute through the process by which Tim ended at this last resort (and how well he knew him).

First, a series of short text messages in rapid succession, followed by a text apologising for messaging the wrong number (liar). Then a phone call getting cut off before he can pick up. On day three, a phone call that gets cut off immediately after he picks up. Day Four: a call hung up after he questions ‘Hello?’ to the silent caller, but before he checks the ID. Shame and embarrassed anxiety force their way to the front, making Day Five one of no contact. Day Six, Tim always make a pit-stop at (their, no) Jason’s door and slides a roundabout note through the gap underneath, failing to actually ask the question he’s trying to. (Jason keeps the notes in an envelope in the box crammed at the back of his closet with all the things he couldn’t get rid of). Night Seven, he shows up at 11.30 p.m. (neither of them patrolled Sunday nights, Tim because he had to be at W.E on Monday mornings and Jason because they needed time for themselves, _he_ needed, he needed time for himself, to make _himself_ a nice breakfast).

Each time after the first, he arrived precisely at the minute having made his way across town in pyjamas. (Jason would question why, until he remembered how they had arrived at this arrangement).

Jason flicked off his bedroom light and slid under the covers.

Tim would tiptoe his way in a few moments later, muscle memory aiding him with knowledge of the layout and where to step in the near-pitch darkness without stubbing a toe on the bed posts (like he had wont to do when they’d first started living together, when Tim would collapse onto the bedspread, and on the days where he appeased Jason, actively stood up and tried to painlessly make his way to his side).

They’d both feign sleep for a few minutes (with what would be good acting, but was seen through by both of the two, who’d known each other for too long). But would soon ease into a gentle sleep, helped by the presence of the only thing, the only person that gave them peace enough to rest wholly.

They would become entangled over the course of the night, limbs overlapping into a practised mesh and holding each other close like they couldn’t bear to let the other go (they really couldn’t, but they did anyway).

Whoever woke up first in the morning would be far out of sight, and nearly untraceable—Tim would be in the wind, on his way back to his apartment before taking a taxi to work, the ever-reliable son both in public and private; while Jason had taken to scrubbing his face with water in the sink and scarpering out of the rooftop entrance and leaping across a few roofs, using the cover of brick walls and billboards to smoke cigarettes until the sun was well in the sky, his apartment was empty, and he was ready to return to an empty home, filled with new relics. (He’d slowed to smoking a cig only once a week, before, but now he was back to old habits, on Sundays in particular, he’d chain smoke like he wouldn’t on any other day). If it weren’t for the small signs that another person had passed through, he wouldn’t be able to tell if what happened was true—Tim was a living ghost, and he mourned him.

Though neither of them was truly aware of it, there was a small seed of hope for the two ex-lovers. A budding sign of promise in the morning moments, when one of them would wake too early, and behold the other’s sleeping face, before shifting and shuffling closer into the other’s side.

Perhaps it was a good thing then, that neither of them could escape their fate.

**Author's Note:**

> This'll get angstier before it gets better, so prepare yourselves.
> 
> But, remember sadness is fleeting, because I wouldn't have started this series if it was going to end sadly/with my boys apart. So, there. Spoilers.
> 
> See you soon!


End file.
